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David Rudolph is the founder of PlayOn! Sports, a proposed 24-hour, multiplatform high school sports network. Here is the programming he says you're unlikely to see when it debuts: elite club youth sports, breathless recruiting coverage, reality shows, made-for-television interstate high school games, and wall-to-wall coverage of National Signing Day. You know, the stuff about every other network does with high school sports.

"It's not about the 1 percent, the elite 1 percent," Rudolph said. "It's about the other 99 percent. For most kids, high school is the last chance to compete in an environment where it matters."

Rudolph's company, Atlanta-based 2080 Media, announced Feb. 13 that PlayOn!, which already claims to be "the nation's largest rights holder, producer, distributor, and aggregator of high school sports events," would form a network, with programming available through television, computer and smartphone. PlayOn! has no committed cable, satellite or mobile carriers, but Rudolph said negotiations are under way, and "there is a tremendous amount of interest." As a matter of fact, Rudolph said, the idea of a network was pushed by distributors and carriers looking for a consistent, national feed for high school sports programming.

Rudolph founded PlayOn! in 2005 as part of his then-employer, Turner Broadcasting System. He, and several investment groups, bought it from Turner in 2008 and made it independent. PlayOn! got its latest round of financing, $7.2 million, from a group that included founding investor Buckhead Investment Partners of Atlanta.

Already, PlayOn! is producing coverage for about 25,000 events per year annually, working in concert with state athletic associations and schools. (The company pays licensing fees for state athletic association events, but terms vary with individual schools.) In some cases, PlayOn! provides the equipment so students can put together the broadcast. The company reports annual revenue of $15 million: 70% from license and content syndication fees; 20% from advertising, and the rest from DVD sales and technology support to schools.

The distributors PlayOn! works with -- such as Comcast -- approached the company about creating one single network, Rudolph said. Currently, the rights for carrying high school sports, and the quality of broadcasts, are too fragmented for operators to make a major investment in them. But Rudolph said a single national, multiplatform network was seen as a way to overcome those issues. PlayOn! could create national programming -- such as a "SportsCenter"-style show, or documentaries, while allowing regional customization of games and events. And online and on mobile, PlayOn! could allow, say, cable subscribers to choose the game of their choice that might not be on TV, a model like that of ESPN3, which allows authenticated subscribers to pick the college game of their choice that might not be on TV.

"We are building this product to be good for the multichannel distributors," Rudolph said. "We’re building it with them in mind."

PlayOn! certainly has no shortage of possible events from which to choose. While producing 25,000 events a year sounds like a lot, Rudolph estimates there are 40,000 events annually -- just in his home state of Georgia. Nationwide, he figures a potential game pool of 2.5 million.

And if you look at high school sports coverage at such sites as ESPN.com and SI.com, the focus is on the elite, whether it's teams or players. For many of these sites, the high schools themselves seem almost incidental. They are a means to a higher end, not an experience in and of themselves. Elite club teams, and the experiences there, can get just as much attention, depending on coverage of certain athletes.

"If high school sports starts to fade whether because there’s more emphasis on the media side or resources side, for the club sports and the wealthy, that’s bad for the country in general," Rudolph said. "That’s one reason for what we’re doing. We want to continue to media coverage of these events, because high school is cool. When you put on that letter jacket with your school and community, that matters to you and your teammates and your school and alumni and people who came before you. There’s a place for club and a place for high school. We need to make sure high school stays relevant, not only on a media level, but to kids, where they want to spend their time."

Rudolph says he's not against high school stars, but PlayOn! views and handles them in a different way. For example, the company handles television coverage for the Colorado High School Activities Association's swimming and diving championships. In the most recent event, Missy Franklin, one of the world's best swimmers, came back to participate for her high school, Regis Jesuit. "It was totally worth it. It is the perfect situation to come out here and have so much fun," Franklin told the Denver Post. "It's such a great way to enjoy the sport again, and just really love it and be a part of it. State is unlike any other meet out there. I want to be there as many times as I can." This, after Franklin's team finished third.

It's that kind of special enthusiasm for high school sports, from someone likely to be wearing Olympic gold medals in London in a few months, that Rudolph says his network wants to capture, whether it's live, or whether, say, PlayOn! plumbs the libraries of state associations to show pro athletes in their high school days.

"We are fans of high school sports," Rudolph said. Soon enough, he and PlayOn! will find out if there's a substantial audience of people who are fans of the 99 percent, too.